MASON CITY, Iowa, Oct 20 (AFP) - Wooing rural voters in the key heartland state of Iowa, US President George W. Bush on Wednesday charged Democratic rival John Kerry's was unfit to lead the war on terrorism and win in Iraq.
"The next commander in chief must lead us to victory in this war, and you cannot win a war when you don't believe you're fighting one," Bush told cheering supporters 13 days from the November 2 election.
The president seized on Kerry's comments in a New York Times interview earlier this month that the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes "didn't change me much at all."
"This unchanged world view becomes obvious when he calls the war against terror primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation, rather than what I believe: A war which requires the full use of American power to keep us secure," said Bush.
"You cannot lead our nation to decisive victory on which the security of every American family depends if you do not see the true dangers of a post-September the 11th world," the president charged.
Bush also seized on senior Kerry foreign policy adviser Richard Holbrooke's recent comments that "we're not in a war on terror, in the literal sense ... The war on terror is like saying 'the war on poverty.' It's just a metaphor."
"Confusing food programs with terrorist killings reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the war we face, and that is very dangerous thinking," said Bush, who has anchored many of his most effective attacks on Kerry's own words.
In 2000, Bush lost Iowa's important seven electoral college votes -- 270 are needed to win the presidency -- to then-vice president Al Gore by just 4,144 votes.
The president was to move on to campaign in other states with tight contests, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
The president also attacked Kerry's repeated claim that the war in Iraq has been a "diversion" from the war on terror, which the Democrat says ought to have stuck to hunting down Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
To buttress his argument, Bush invoked Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the Islamic militant blamed for a spate of beheadings as well as attacks on US forces in Iraq, noting he had recently pledged allegiance to bin Laden.
"If Zarqawi and his associates were not busy fighting American forces in Iraq, does Senator Kerry think he would be leading a productive and peaceful life? Of course not.
"And that's why Iraq is no diversion, but a central commitment to the war on terror a place where our military is confronting and defeating terrorists overseas so we do not have to face them here at home," said Bush.